Johnson, Karl

We will honor departed members of the Class of 1970 at a Remembrance Service on Sunday morning, June 14, 2020, during our 50th Reunion. The service will be led by led by our classmate Rev. Chris Bryan. We hope you will plan to attend.

Karl Johnson passed away suddenly in Albuquerque, New Mexico on June 3, 2019 of “complications from lung cancer.”

Karl attended Williams his freshman year on a National Merit scholarship. He earned a BA in philosophy from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK, 1970. He then earned his JD in 1979 from the University of Oregon in Eugene, where he graduated first in his law school class. Karl specialized in Native American law until he retired in 2017.

On June 24, 2019, an interesting piece discussing Karl and Liz Warren’s high school debating partnership appeared in the New York Times and Boston Globe. See How Elizabeth Warren Learned to Fight.

Karl was Liz Herren (Warren’s) debate partner in high school. Karl and Ms. Herren won the state debating championship in Oklahoma their senior year, 1966 . The article includes a very nice high school picture of Karl with Liz Herren, as she was known at the time.

This article was published in the New York Times and Boston Globe on June 24, 2019, just days before Ms. Warren’s first Presidential Debate in Miami, FL on June 27, 2019.